last day of our road trip! 4of4

the last day of our trip was spent driving through texas, as per usual if you live in the center of this enormous state. 

this is about how things went during the road trip.

first things first. dallas. and ikea. remember how people love to say 'everything is bigger in texas'? well yeah, everything really is. LOOK at how spacious this ikea is. jon and i laughed at the very few tiny fake apartments that were set up in this particular ikea. living in small quarters is just not the way of life here.

the main reason we stopped in Dallas was to take the JFK assassination tour. we were a bit short on time and change (…), so we opted out of the JFK museum and in to the telephone walking tour. for $2.50 we put my phone on speaker and learned about the sites all over Dealey Plaza. This Dallas County Administration Building is where the JFK museum is and is the former Texas School Book Depository where they believe Lee Harvey Oswald did the deed from the 6th floor.

here is the view of the same building. the window is on the sixth floor on the very end. it looks different from all the rest, like it is permanently open. the tour didn't give us a reason for this, so one can only speculate...

a couple blocks from where JFK was assassinated sits a nice memorial for him. it was placed there in 1970 and was designed by Philip Johnson. Jackie Kennedy approved the site herself and johnson described his memorial as "a place of quiet refuge, an enclosed place of thought and contemplation separated from the city around, but near the sky and earth." we were there on a calm day, but walking into that room quieted the cars driving by and was exactly how he described it.

view of the triple underpass jfk's limo sped under on the way to the hospital after he'd been shot.

the infamous grassy knoll.

the x's are not official markers, and no one knows who originally painted them. they were there for over 30 years before the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination when the city of Dallas removed them for an unknown reason. (they were obviously repainted, as they were there 1.5 months later when we visited). the two x's supposedly mark where jfk's limousine was when the two shots were fired. we were excited to come to this location because my dad told us that conspiracy theorists were in abundance here, ready to tell you about their view of the events on november 22, 1963. as previously mentioned in my posts about this trip, this weekend was unusually cold. hardly anyone was out and about in dallas so unfortunately, we did not speak to any conspiracy theorists. jon got this good picture of both x's and a view of the window on the 6th floor.

it was a very interesting tour. i really want to go back and go through the museum to learn more about the investigations of that day as well as jfk's life.

on our way home, we stopped at in-n-out burger in austin. i've never been obsessed with in-n-out, but it was nice to have a taste of home that we've been missing so terribly.
our vacation was a blast, jon and i had so much fun on our road trip-seeing old friends and new places. and not to mention the car! every time i get in my car, i feel like i'm borrowing an old persons vehicle, it's awesome and much nicer than i am used to. with our plane tickets, gas, hotel and food plus the sales tax that was much higher than we were expecting, the car was still a better deal than we could have found locally. so not only did we get an awesome deal on the car (jon is so good at that stuff), but we got a vacation out of it and got to break our new car in. it was excellent! 

fourth of july 2013!

we had such a fun time celebrating the 4th!! 

the 3rd is my mother in law kathy's birthday, so we had dinner and played games with her until they went to bed. after celebrating, jon and i packed up the car and left san antonio for austin! we drove directly to a nice little neighrbohood and set up shop! we slept happily but uncomforatbly in the land cruiser. we woke up and brushed our teeth on the side of the car and were packing up when the neighbor came out to take out his trash. he came up to jon and told him he liked his car and thanked jon for his service. jon told him we slept in front of his house in preparation for the parade and the neighbor didn't care at all! people here are so nice. he also let us know that the parade was just a little neighborhood thing and it wouldn't be too crowded....we are so used to california. 

the parade was indeed a little neighborhood thing, but it was so cute! we loved being there with all these nice and happy texans. butttt.....

the best part of the day was hanging out with this girl!!!! she is selling over the summer in dallas and her and her friends came down to celebrate the fourth! she is the main reason we went to austin, and we had so much fun!!! the first place we went to was a river that looks shallow in these photos. there was an area of the river that was about 12 feet deep and had rocks we could jump off of and stuff. it was a ton of fun and the water was perfect. i love laughing with jessie so much and always remember why we have been friends forever. i laughed so hard while jon was splashing us and we were splashing each other. so childish! 

our next destination was hamilton pool. 

it was so amazing!!! i wish these pictures did it justice. we hiked 1/4 of a mile down to the pool on a pretty trail and then came upon this wondrous view. the water was a bit chilly....but once you got in, it was awesome. my pictures don't show it, but there was water dripping from the rocks all along the top creating little waterfalls. it seemed like a good idea to hang out underneath them, but it felt like a waterfall of bb's if you catch my drift. 

this is a good picture of one of the 'waterfalls'.
very painful i tell you.

we got bbq for dinner with our new friends and had a good time. then we split up which wasn't a good time and gave me separation anxiety. jon and i weren't sure where we wanted to watch fireworks, so we just started driving. we stopped in blanco and asked a policeman where the fireworks were being held and he referred us to a teeny tiny town 20 minutes away called albert. 

it was really nice! there was a bar and a dance hall and that's about it. we tried ordering food at the bar and the lady sent us to the pavilion where there was a family/town? barbecue going on which meant free food for everybody! plus a little fireworks show which was really cool since they were RIGHT in front of us. i was a little bit frightened though since 1/3 of the fireworks were going off on the ground instead of up in the sky, but what do you do?

i love celebrating the 4th with my man, it is always something new and adventurous. i love america so much. it seems like we truly celebrated independnece day at church the sunday before when we sang america the beautiful and the star spangled banner. chills for days.

i wasn't mad coming home to these puppies:

homemade fried pickles from kathy:

and jon holding a toad he found in the driveway:

texas is pretty fun, i guess.

you can't really go wrong with:

celebrating belated birthdays.

introducing your pets and having everyone on edge except logan who is allwayyys like "whatevers!"

sending your man off to his first day at the university!

seeing twins loving each other.

THIS. JUST THIS.
(i got the photo in a text)

crazy chickens in the house.

you can kind of go wrong with getting rained out from tubing down the comal river in new braunfels. we lasted a good 45 minutes before the rain started coming down so hard it felt like nails on my back/shoulders. also, i did wear a swimsuit it just looks like i didn't.

you can also kind of go wrong with going downtown for a boat tour down the riverwalk but getting rained out of that too. it still made for a fun and pretty night at the riverwalk. 

i could argue that there is nothing wrong with this picture, but i think alex and kathy would disagree. "we" poured cement for the chicken coup and almost everyone got soaked with cement. i'm sure i would have been soaked with cement too, had they let me help to my full potential.

you can definitely not go wrong with getting marine corps awards even though you are out of the marine corps.

the sunsets haven't been anything toooo crazy, but i did appreciate it this night. no matter where i am, sunsets always remind me of my dear friend katie.

you can't go wrong with a beautiful day on canyon lake. orrr

with facetiming your dad on his birthday and seeing this hanging into the shot.

pouting at work. (or can you?)

having four dogs. (logan needs the most work, but jade, who is not pictured, comes in at a close second.)

WITH SEGWAYING. ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

all of us at the texas state capitol in austin, tx.

and i mean that. if you've never segwayed, you need to search groupon extensively until you find a segway tour near you. it was the best thing i've ever done in my life and i can't decide what is funnier: 

me infuriating jon by circling him over and over anytime we stopped

or

alex tipping over on the segway (which the tour guide said was impossible), getting back on and tipping right back over again.   

alex: "I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what happened."

tour guide: "I don't know what happened either, but i do know you and your sister have been messing around this entire time and I haven't said anything."

'your sister' is me and he's right- we were messing around the entire time and no, he didn't say anything. best night!

i'm not mad about exploring the 10 acres that make up the hagerman compound with alex even though we almost tipped, but don't tell anyone. i guess being around children causes me to revert in maturity.
(jon didn't witness this, thankfully)

i'm mad but strangely comforted by this image.
seriously zombies, just go somewhere else.

i am furious about this room, but it's made so much progress.

see?:

i could be upset by working in the food industry still, but i'm actually not. it pays way more than panera bread did and it's much more fun. (although i miss mendez.) and i never leave feeling like i need my entire body sanitized, which is a big bonus. i work with my sister in law kaitlyn and work both in the store and on the pizza truck.

there is absolutely nothing wrong with swimming in pretty lake travis before ziplining thousands of feet with your fun family in austin.

or working on a pizza truck. the best part about this is sweating gallons upon gallons. its like being in a sauna or doing bikram yoga with pizza and without yoga. it sounds awful but it's actually quite nice.

(i am pictured, talking business (pay) with the owner of the store and truck. he's also the chef.)

i can say there is nothing wrong with going to the horse races but i can't, with confidence, say there is nothing wrong with gambling and especially gambling for your 20 year old sister and 16 year old brother who aren't of age yet. fortunately, we all came out on top!
(and no, i'm not addicted, but i can't say that with confidence either.)

can i leave you with two pictures? one of my cooped up cat who found the only open window in the entire house and one of my dog who unmistakably resembles the dog from Up. 

i'm pretty happy here, it has been an awesome 3.5 weeks so far. we've vacationed here so many times that it felt like another vacation for the first few weeks. it's starting to feel a little bit more legitimate that we are actual texas residents who have jobs here and go to school. it is weird, but i am loving it!

(and so is logan, but that's obvious!)